


Revelation

by Charity_Angel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, FRIDAY is a terrible bro, Flash isn't a completely irrational moron, Gen, MJ/Peter could be read as ace, Peter Parker's Field Trip to Stark Industries, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Trope Subversion, doesn't even take squinting, ignores that bullshit in the credits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charity_Angel/pseuds/Charity_Angel
Summary: In which the field trip trope is subverted a bit





	1. Flash is on the Academic Decathlon team - he's not an idiot...

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so why did no-one tell me about this trope? I larb this trope! So, here's a slightly different take on it.

In another world, this might be a tale about Peter Parker and a field trip to the office of Stark Industries based at Avengers Tower. Peter Parker might well be very nervous about this prospect.

And he is, but Flash Thompson is too. The moment it had been announced, he had been enjoying the idea of catching Parker out over the whole intern thing, but before he got a chance to say anything, he overheard a conversation in the hallway that concerned him. Not that he was stalking Parker with the intention of mocking him or anything.

“This is so awesome. You’ll totally be able to prove to Flash that you were telling the truth all along.” Leeds sounded positively gleeful, and was a cheerful contrast to the concerned Parker and perpetually bored Jones.

“Yeah, but. Me and field trips? We don’t have the best history.”

Jones rolled her eyes at the sheer level of melodrama, and Flash couldn’t exactly say he blamed her.

“I mean, first there was OsCorp…”

“But that’s when…”

“Shut _up_, Ned. Not momentous. Then there was DC.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t exactly cool,” Jones commented. “Lucky how Spider-Man just happened to be there to save everyone.”

That seemed like a joke, because Parker cracked a smile at last, and Leeds sniggered, but it was hard to tell with Jones. And yeah, actually, Flash was really not knocking that Spider-Man had been there to save his team-mates from certain death. But Parker hadn’t even been there – he’d vanished off the face of the Earth for the whole of the actual competition, and had only reappeared after the disaster at the Monument.

“And then there was that time we went to the museum of modern art.”

“You mean, _we_ went to the museum,” Jones corrected. “You sneaked off. And then we all got Blipped, along with a surprisingly unrealistic amount of our friends. Pretty much the whole Decathlon team got Blipped, did you notice? That’s not indiscriminate.”

“Then there was Europe,” Parker said, apparently ignoring Jones’ observation.

“Disaster,” they both agreed.”

“And that’s just the last four trips. So why is this one going to be any better?”

Leeds just stared at him like he was an idiot. “Because, dude, it’s _Stark freaking Industries_. They make so much cool stuff. I’d love to see the code behind that AI Mr Stark made – what was her name again?”

“FRIDAY,” Parker said. “And you’ve seen Karen’s code, she’s not that different really.”

“I think it would be beneficial for some of the morons in this school to visit a company that’s headed by a woman,” Jones commented, apropos of nothing. “I’m sure we won’t get to meet her, but it would be interesting to hear what kind of prejudice she faces, being in such a high-powered position. Especially how she balances her home-work commitments, being a single parent.”

“Maybe not phrase it like that?” Parker suggested. “Losing Mr Stark… it’s been hard. I know she lived through the Blip, so she’s five years older than my brain thinks she should be, but… she kinda looks it. She’s always been kind of ageless before, never seemed to let anything touch her.”

“So, what’s got your boxers in a bunch about _this_ trip?” Leeds asked, and Flash lost track of the answer at that point, when a herd of footballers barrelled out in front of him. Idiots.

.oOo.

By the time the day of the trip rolled around, Parker was still looking worried, but Flash was more and more uncertain of his own position here. After the conversation he had overheard he was questioning everything he had ever believed. Leeds and Jones might well be Parker’s friends, and losers, they weren’t idiots and Jones in particular would not have entertained any kind of deception just to mess with him. They believed Parker, and the detail about the AI would be easily provable in the building itself.

“Flash.”

“Jones.”

“You’re being uncharacteristically quiet,” she observed as she sat down opposite him and stretched out on the seat, her back against the window, her feet hanging off the end. “Why?”

Flash shrugged. “Just thinking. Wondering what differences there might be now that Tony Stark has been dead a couple of years. Are they still able to keep up the same pace of innovation?”

Jones blinked, the only betrayal that he had surprised her.

“Might be worth asking diplomatically?” she suggested. “Oh, there you are, losers.”

Parker brushed her knuckles with his fingertips as he took the seat behind her, Leeds setting himself up in the next one back. Flash was still trying to figure that one out – were they dating or not? They didn’t exactly go in for PDAs, but still. They were seventeen years’ old – it was unnatural for them to be that non-demonstrative.

“Now that everyone is here,” Mr Harrington said, kneeling on the front seat and facing backwards, “we can get going. There’s a few safety things we have to go over before we get there, so that we can have the maximum amount of time on the tour and not dealing with stuff I can do.

“General building rules are that you’ll each be issued with a visitor pass… excepting… excepting those members of the party the security system already has logged in her (_her?_) memory.”

“She’s an AI, sir,” Leeds piped up. “She’s really cool. And Irish.”

Mr Harrington blinked a few times before sighing heavily and moving on. “Passes must be worn at all times otherwise you won’t be allowed into any secure area. Obvious rules for labs – no eating, no drinking, no touching things without permission, no inhaling unknown substances. Jesus, they really feel the need to specify that?”

“Usually because some idiot inhaled something they shouldn’t have,” Jones observed wryly. “I wonder who that might have been?”

Parker coughed suspiciously. “What… what else does it say, Mr Harrington?” he prompted.

“Apparently Stark Industries has a strict tolerance policy: no bullying, no misogyny, no homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, ableism… you name it, it’s listed here.”

“Basically, don’t be a dick,” Leeds summarised.

“Exactly.”

“Also, there is a specific request made that should we see any of the Avengers, don’t harass them. If they introduce themselves, or there is a specific Q&A session arranged, that’s fine, but otherwise the tower is their home, and they should be able to feel at ease there.”

“Sounds fair,” Betty Brant piped up. “I mean, I wouldn’t want someone fawning over me at my place of work.”

A not-so-subtle dig at the fact that Jason Ionello clearly had a crush on her?

“Do we have any Q&As set up?” she continued. “It would be a great piece for Midtown News.”

Mr Harrington scanned through the rest of the information on the tablet in his hand. “Looks like they’re done on a day-by-day basis since the Avengers don’t keep a regular schedule for obvious reasons. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

Flash was glad that he’d kept his mouth shut about Parker’s internship now. While not conclusive proof, he now knew that there were members – plural – of their group who had been to Avengers Tower before, and had their own security passes. While Parker being just an intern didn’t fit with why Leeds (and probably Jones) would have their own too, it did lend some credibility to the story. But some things still didn’t add up. He’d figure it out.

.oOo.

Security was a boring affair, to be honest. Passes were handed out, and they then had to state their name for the security system to activate them. Leeds, Jones, and Parker all went through while the visitor badges were being handed out and the AI greeted them, Irish lilt easily detectible in its voice. It confirmed Parker’s status as an intern, which seemed to get a bit of a frown from Leeds.

“That’s FRIDAY,” their tour guide, Charley, told them. “She’s got eyes and ears on everything. She doesn’t usually interact with visitors, but if you get separated from the group at any point – like, if you step out to the bathroom and we move on – she’ll be able to help you find us, or summon someone to guide you if you’re in a restricted zone.

“The morning will be a general overview of the various divisions we have here at Stark Industries, as well as a bit of time in the Avengers exhibit before lunch. Afterwards, you’ll be able to split off and see a bit more in depth in a lab of your choice – whether that’s biochem, med, robotics, or aviation, before… oh, wow, you guys have quite the Q&A session: Colonel Rhodes, Airman Wilson, Sergeant Barnes, Wanda Maximoff, Agent Barton, Dr Banner… holy cow, um, Captain Rogers – this would be his first one since the Blip ended – and Spider-Man. Who almost never does a Q&A session, and will be wearing his suit to protect his identity since it’s still a secret. We’re just missing Ant-Man, since Thor’s not on Earth right now. I, I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many.”

Parker was absolutely white and typing furiously on his phone. What was that all about? Maybe he wasn’t lying about the internship, but worried because he didn’t actually know Spider-Man and was about to get caught out?

Possible, but didn’t quite seem to fit the facts.

.oOo.

Flash had to admit that the labs were pretty cool, and the lab leaders who took the time to speak to them all acknowledged Parker individually. There was a _lot_ still going on at Stark Industries – enough that a research internship would be worth looking into when he reached college. And that was one of the first things that had been cleared up: interns were almost always college students, but there was one exception and he was standing with them. Why? Because he’d been snapped up by Tony Stark personally, a year before the Blip, and didn’t have a set lab but offered a pair of hands wherever he was needed whenever he wasn’t working on his own projects.

When all eyes had turned to him at that point, Parker had been forced to stammer out the fact that before the Blip, he had worked with Mr Stark on some of the Avengers’ tech, and he still did that now that Mr Stark wasn’t there to do it himself.

“Absolutely true,” Dr Weiss, head of the Biochem said, nodding his head. “Down here we do not see much of the Avengers and their toys, but now that Tony is gone Peter sometimes comes to us for help. Why don’t you show your friends the modifications you were working on for Spider-Man’s webshooters? I think you left those down here, yes?”

“I, er, okay, sure.” Bright red, Parker stepped up to an unused workstation and pressed his thumb to a drawer. It slid open and he pulled out two devices.

“Wait, Spider-Man doesn’t produce the webs himself?” Betty asked.

Parker chuckled nervously. “You’d be surprised how much he hears that, but no, he doesn’t. It’s kind of an aesthetic for him – he got his powers from a spider and the whole sticking to walls thing, so he went with webs.

“The formula for the fluid is kind of tricky, especially getting it so that it dissolves by itself, but holds for long enough to keep someone contained. Or use as a hammock – he does that sometimes too.”

The class laughed.

“It’s also got to be really strong, since Spider-Man swings round the city on it, and it can’t be toxic in any way. Anyway… um, can I?”

He pointed at the ceiling, and Dr Weiss smiled patiently. “Please do not try to swing again, young man. The lab does not forgive such things.”

Parker blushed again. “Sure. No swinging. I’m just gonna hang.” He slid the device on over his wrist and activated it in a motion that looked practiced. With a grin at his classmates, a web shot up towards the ceiling. Parker grabbed hold and lifted himself off the ground.

“I mean this isn’t even a really good demonstration of its tensile strength,” Parker said, just hanging there from a web like it was nothing. “Maybe we could persuade Dr Banner to have a go? That would be really cool.”

“Do you know how fast Spider-Man can go when he’s swinging on those?” Jones asked, almost sounding bored but not quite succeeding.

“Um… I think he’s been clocked somewhere around sixty? He kind of free-falls for a bit if he’s high enough up, so he can get really fast. I’m sure you guys can all do the math and figure out the tensile strength needed to hold up under that.”

Flash couldn’t, not in his head, but to catch and swing a grown man at that kind of speed, well, he knew it was a lot. And he had to admit that he was kind of impressed that scientists at Stark Industries seemed to respect Parker. He did seem a bit more confident, a bit less of a complete loser, when he was in the lab and not with the class.

“You really work with Avengers stuff?” one of the other girls (Stacey? Shelly?) asked. “That’s so cool – why didn’t you say anything?”

Parker shrugged. “I mean, I could say that I signed an NDA – and I totally did – but, would you have believed me?”

Stacey/Shelly shrugged. “Point.”

Yeah, it was. Flash knew that, NDA or not, he would absolutely have bragged about that, and it was entirely likely that no-one would have believed him either. It was entirely unbelievable.

“But they do loads of other cool stuff here too,” Parker added quickly. “Karl over there is working on an algae that can break down plastics in the sea, and Mobeen is so nearly there with practical bioluminescence for green lighting.”

The two interns he pointed out looked startled and embarrassed to have been called upon. Both gave little waves before turning back to their work.

“And now we’ll be moving on to the medical labs,” Charley said, their smooth voice carrying over the group.

Parker dropped back to the floor, put the webshooters back where he had found them, and re-joined the class. Leeds gave him a high five, and Jones rolled her eyes.

“Obvious much?” she muttered.

Holy. Shit.

Yes, it was. No fucking _way_!

Parker disappearing in DC, and only appearing after the action (looking more than a bit banged up, now Flash thought about it). Him ditching his date (Liz Toomes, not just hot but a senior and well out of Parker’s league) during the Homecoming dance, while Spider-Man went out and caught the Vulture. Parker ditching during the trip to the MOMA, and Spider-Man being seen fighting aliens a few blocks over. Parker and Spider-Man both being Blipped. Parker’s aunt apparently having enough pull to get Spider-Man to show up to the fundraisers for losers like them who were displaced during the Blip. Parker disappearing all the time during the trip to Europe. Him ditching just about everything. Him being the one and only high school aged intern at the most prestigious science and tech firm in the world. Him being so broken up over Tony Stark’s death. Parker being able to use those webshooters so easily.

Flash was _fucked_. No-one could _ever_ know he had been such a dick to his hero without knowing it.


	2. Never Trust an AI to Have Your Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Flash pieced together the evidence and reached one inescapable conclusion: Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

“No, no no no no, it’s not what you think.”

That was Parker, shaking his head.

“Dr Weiss, can I use your office for a second?”

“Sure, Peter. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, probably. Me and Flash will catch up to the rest of the group in a second.”

Flash allowed himself to be steered into the office, and let the door close behind them.

“What the _fuck_, Parker?”

Parker sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Yeah, so we’re doing this now. FRIDAY, I reckon the recording in here is about to become alpha classified.”

“Sure thing, boss,” the AI responded brightly.

Flash felt his brain glitch for a second there. “‘Boss’?”

“FRIDAY, what did I say about that?” Parker asked instead of answering him.

“That I should only refer to you as an intern in front of your class. Should I extend this protocol to every individual student?”

Parker swore under his breath. “Yes. Please. And Mr Harrington. Obvious exceptions apply.”

“Of course. Sorry, Peter.”

Parker sank into the chair and stared at the ceiling for a bit, kind of like that was where he would rather be.

“Hit me,” he said eventually.

“You’re Spider-Man?”

Parker nodded wordlessly.

“I… Can I apologise?”

Parker levelled a stare at him that was much older than seventeen years. “Are you only apologising to me because you’ve figured it out?”

Flash shook his head, then considered it and that the impulsive denial was actually correct. “I overheard you talking to Leeds and Jones, just after the trip was announced. You weren’t showing off or anything, just… it was at OsCorp, wasn’t it? You were sick for a couple weeks after that.”

“Yeah. Turns out having your DNA rewritten isn’t all that fun. And having your sense suddenly turned all the way up.”

That answered a few more questions, like why crowds and bright lights, and lots of noise bothered Parker in a way they hadn’t before that trip.

“But anyway, hearing that kind of made me realise that maybe I was wrong about you. I mean, it still seems unbelievable, but I shouldn’t have been such a complete jerk to you about it.”

Parker shrugged. “I get why people didn’t believe me. I honestly don’t think I’d have believed me. But you’re right about one thing – you really shouldn’t be such a jerk. To anyone. If I learned anything at all from Mr Stark, it’s that people with privilege should use it to help others, not to feel better about themselves.”

Flash nodded, letting the words truly sink in.

“It’s one of the reasons SI has so many rules about tolerance. A tolerant environment helps everyone reach their full potential.”

“Noted.”

Parker gave him a half-smile. “Anything else?”

“Will you sit on the ceiling?”

That did make Parker laugh, and he easily did some kind of jump/flip that landed him upside-down. He did sit, but because of the high ceiling, by standing he was still pretty much at Flash’s eye level, just the wrong way up.

“That is plain freaky. How?”

“Electrostatics,” Parker said. “Had to give up wearing shoes with rubber soles, which is a pain in the ass. Figuring out how to unstick was the fun part. Anything else?”

“N… yes. She called you ‘boss’.” Flash gestured towards the ceiling, hoping to convey that he was referring to the AI.

“Uh huh. Two trustee owners of Stark Industries now – me and Morgan Stark. I’m old enough that Mrs Stark gives me some say in things, but she gets the casting votes for both of us until I turn twenty-one. Tony’s will actually said ‘twenty-first birthday’, but with all the new legislation the lawyers say the day I’ve actually spent seven thousand, six hundred and seventy days on this planet is what they’re actually going to take.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but didn’t.

“Why… why isn’t this public knowledge?”

Peter shrugged. “We didn’t want to draw too much attention. We’ll make an announcement when I get my place on the board, but until then people know that Mrs Stark is still the CEO, and that there was another minor as well as Morgan mentioned as the main beneficiaries. The rest is wrapped up in NDAs. Tony knew what he was doing.

“Flash, before we leave this room, I need you to promise that you will not tell anyone; either that I’m Spider-Man, or that I own half this company. No-one can know.”

Flash briefly considered the fact that he could leak this to the press, offer them an exclusive. And then he considered the fact that his literal hero was standing on the ceiling, asking him to help keep his name a secret so that he could do his job properly. Both of them, actually, and a good word from the head of Stark Industries really could go a long way for Flash in the future.

“Okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

Parker let out a breath in relief. “Thank fuck for that. I’ll have legal draw up some paperwork later and get your parents to counter-sign, but we’re good for now. Should probably catch up with the group – FRIDAY, where are they?”

“Prosthetics lab, boss. They’re waiting for you to catch up since Sergeant Barnes is also in there.”

“Oh. Awesome. At least he’s probably not out to embarrass me.”

Wait a second. “You’re doing our Q&A later. How?”

“Yeah, remind me to ask Mrs Stark about that. And to remind her that these things are optional for the Avengers involved. Like, we have to agree to them in advance, not get them dropped on us when we’re supposed to be sitting in the freaking audience.”

Flash couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Kind of explains your reaction, actually. Is that who you were texting? Mrs Stark? _Pepper_ Stark?”

“Yeah. Apparently she’s going to explain everything and I shouldn’t freak out.”

“You’re kind of failing on that one, you know.”

Parker shrugged.

“How is it possible that you’re simultaneously the coolest person alive, and a complete loser?”

“Skill,” Parker quipped. “But it’s okay; it’ll take time for you to adjust to not being a dick. Come on, let’s catch up before we get off schedule and Charley gets testy. They’re not Dr Banner levels of being unpleasant, but no-one wants a testy Charley, trust me.”

.oOo.

They were ushered out of the prosthetics lab almost as soon as they were in, which was a shame because the brief glances looked like they were working on some really cool stuff. Flash knew that Stark Industries were one of the leaders when it came to neural interfaces, but there were very few working models out there with entirely neural interfaces, and they were entirely isolated to combat vets.

“You could always choose this as your option this afternoon,” Parker whispered to him as they moved on to the main medical lab where there were a bunch of neuro specialists working on nerve regeneration. “Come back up here.”

“Where would you go?” Flash asked out of curiosity.

“Honestly? Probably here. It’s where I spend the least amount of time; it would be nice to spend some time getting to know more about what they’re doing.”

That seemed reasonable – Parker was generally more about the physics and chemistry than the biology side. His loss. Flash dropped his line of questioning while the lab leader went over some of the techniques they were trialling, and the fact that the neuro lab was specifically set up in 2016, following a life-changing injury suffered by one of the Avengers. War Machine coped well using a prosthetic exo-skeleton that moved his legs for him, but if they could restore the damaged nerves, well, that would really be something special.

“Have you been able to do it?” Flash asked.

The leader, whose name Flash honestly hadn’t paid attention to what with his brain imploding just a tiny bit, smiled a bit. “No, not yet. We’ve had some promising results in mice, but they’re not always the best model to use, and we’ve not been able to reproduce it in a hominid model yet. But we’ll get there. This was Tony Stark’s last big dream before the Blip, and none of us want to disappoint him.”

At his side, Parker shifted uncomfortably. Given he had just admitted that he didn’t spend a lot of time in this lab, he was probably feeling a bit guilty.

“On the side, we work on neural interfacing in conjunction with the prosthetics division, but mimicking the complexities of the nervous system is really tricky. The tech guys are doing their best, but while they can do the control systems pretty well, they’re still struggling with tactile feedback.”

“You mean, like actual sensation in a prosthetic?” Parker asked. “Like Luke Skywalker? That’s so cool. You guys got space for another intern?”

God, Spider-Man was such a geek. But, to be fair, if Flash ignored the Star Wars reference, he had to agree, and wanted to ask the same question. That must be a fascinating area to work in.

“From what I hear, Mr Parker, we would be lucky to have you.”

Parker shuffled his feet. “Um… not so sure about that. I’m, uh, my bio needs work. But this sounds like an awesome way to start learning.”

And he was back to being a nerd again.

.oOo.

The rest of the tour went well. The guys in the robotics club spazzed out when they reached nirvana. Or the robotics lab on the tenth floor. Whatever. A couple of the interns in there let them play with a fairly simple AI they were working on for the new StarkPhone. Barely intelligent, they said, glancing at the ceiling nervously as if afraid to invite the wrath of FRIDAY, but they hoped it would leave Alexa and Siri in the dust. It was just a matter of compression.

Brant asked why it had taken them so long to get to this point, since didn’t Tony Stark have his AI in his phone back in, like, 2010?

“Oh sure, he did,” Hannah replied. “But that was more like a remote accessing of… well, it would have been JARVIS, back then. The Iron Man suits interfaced with him, and then FRIDAY, too. What we’re trying to do is compress an AI into the phone’s actual hardware, without making something incredibly laggy. We’ve pretty much just reached a point, technologically, where that’s feasible. Before now, the OS would have taken up far too much space and processing power, and the phone would have pretty much been a brick. A very pretty, expensive, brick.”

“You mean, you’re offering something offline?” Jones asked. “Instead of systems like Alexa and OK Google, where it needs an internet connection, and is incredibly privacy-invasive?”

Luka grinned at her. “That’s _exactly_ what we’re saying. Things like Alexa are stored centrally, and can’t work without that connection. And, while Mr Stark did his best to offer great communication across the world, coverage isn’t universal, and we don’t force people to use our phones on our network. Also, we don’t need to gather all that data – all we’d want would be feedback. We don’t want that much personal data. Even if Stark Industries did keep data like that, and I don’t think it ever did, the handling legislation is just a pain in the ass now, after what Europe did during the Blip. Much better to keep things locally where possible.”

The Avengers exhibit took on a surreal feeling, given the fact that Spider-Man was right there with them, looking at the exhibits. Because Flash was watching Parker closely, he could see that Parker wasn’t so much ‘looking’ at the exhibits like the rest of their classmates, but making sure that everything was in order. He wondered how much input the nerd had into what was in here.

It was kind of interesting, seeing in real life what the internet put together in side-by-side images – the evolution of suits, tech etc for each Avenger. Some had changed less than others, obviously: Hawkeye’s black leather was a classic, and War Machine’s armour, while undergoing a few upgrades over the years, had never really changed from that unadorned silver. Whereas Iron Man’s finishes had varied greatly from model to model. The mask was the only thing that remained unchanged throughout the designs. It was interesting, though, seeing the reproduction of what the display called the ‘Mark I’ suit – the one he had built in Afghanistan from bits of his own weapons in order to escape. That was seriously impressive. And from that to an entirely nanotech suit in just a decade.

The nano-suit wasn’t there: apparently it hadn’t survived the final battle against Thanos, the alien responsible for the Blip. When Iron Man had given his life to defeat Thanos and his army, the nano-suit had been too badly drained to charge properly ever again and it had lost all cohesion.

But, the display also said, there was still a working nano-suit in existence because Spider-Man also had one.

Spider-Man’s section of the display showed the evolution of his suits, from the blue pants and red hoodie he had worn the day of Homecoming, when he had ‘borrowed’ Flash’s dad’s car and wrecked it, through the first Stark-made suit that had also included Spider-Man’s very own AI, Karen, to assist him in fighting crime, then replicas of his most recent two suits – the nano-suit dubbed the ‘Iron Spider’, which had an additional four limbs in the back, giving a really spider-like appearance, and the current black-and-red suit that Spider-Man had apparently created himself just before the incident in London with Mysterio last year.

Dude, Parker’s ability to make a suit had increased. A lot.

While the displays for the living Avengers were cool but fairly scant on information that wasn’t already in the public domain, the memorials to their deceased comrades were a lot more extensive. While Tony Stark’s life had been lived in the spotlight for all to see, Black Widow’s sketchy past made for some amazing reading, and Vision… well, that was just insane. An _actual_ android, with an Infinity Stone as part of his makeup? Mental. And apparently capable of lifting Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir – a feat that had indicated that he was worthy to lead the Asgardian people.

Captain Rogers was too, apparently, according to the info screen beside a replica Mjolnir. And, so the screen said, Spider-Man had moved it, but not outright lifted it. According to Thor, this showed that the potential was there but that Spider-Man needed to learn something first. Captain Rogers had moved the hammer back in 2015 but hadn’t actually lifted it until 2023. So maybe Peter would be worthy one day, but not right now.

Probably self-esteem, Flash mused as he watched the Avenger in question browsing the Spider-Man display and looking highly self-conscious. And, Flash could admit to himself, he hadn’t exactly helped any with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For once, I've actually finished a fic before I caught up to myself! And I should have my internet as of Wednesday, so I'll be able to get the final chapter uploaded in time to keep to an actual reasonable posting schedule :)


	3. Never Trust your Mom to Have Your Back Either

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peter is (clearly not) in two places at once, people manage to piss Pepper off, and the field trip comes to an end

Lunchtime was fairly unadventurous (unlike the range of choice for food): Flash sat with his friends and carefully didn’t talk about Parker’s internship, or his minor freak-out. Instead he filled the conversation with all the stuff they had seen in the labs so far. He had chosen his seat carefully, and could see every glance Leeds and Jones threw his way as they grilled Parker. Parker didn’t seem too worried, but kept checking his phone – no doubt for news on how he was going to manage to be in two places at once during the Q&A. It didn’t look like an answer was forthcoming.

After lunch, Flash quickly opted to return to the neuro lab, and was unsurprised to find that Parker was part of that small group. Most of their class was divided fairly evenly between robotics, tech, and prosthetics, but there were a few who peeled off to pharmaceuticals (one they had skipped out on earlier) or biochem.

Somehow, he ended up partnered with Parker at a workbench, plotting out possibilities.

“So, nerve cells don’t regenerate like normal cells, right?”

“Right.”

“So either we need to figure out a way to get them to regenerate, we need to replace them altogether, or we need to patch them. I mean, all they need to do is conduct electricity.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Flash observed, voice laced liberally with sarcasm.

“Yeah but, I mean, sometimes I need to splice a wire, and just wrap it in a bit of electrical tape to stop it shorting out. Can’t we do that with nerves? Splice the ends together and regenerate the myelin sheath? Instead of just trying to actually make the cell look like new?”

Flash stared. “I… FRIDAY, has that been tried yet?”

Data flashed onto the holodisplay in front of them. Yes, and it was the promising results in mice thing Dr Vasquez had mentioned earlier. But the nerves didn’t hold steady, and the sheathes tended to break apart under the stress.

But it was a start, and it had taken Parker, the phys-chem specialist, about a minute of blurting his thoughts out loud to come up with it.

“Why the fuck are you still in high school?”

“Because Aunt May couldn’t afford to send me to college early,” he admitted, embarrassed. “And I didn’t want to get too far ahead of my friends, you know? Going to college early messes people up. Look at what it did to Mr Stark: he was basically a functional alcoholic for twenty years. No thanks. And even when I met him he would forget how to look after himself: spend days on end in the lab on a project, not sleeping, barely eating or drinking.”

A message appeared on the display, on the internal IM system:

V. Stark: Sounds like someone else I know. 

Peter blanched and typed back quickly:

P. Parker: I don’t do that.

V. Stark: I don’t even need to argue with you. FRIDAY can prove that I’m right.

P. Parker: I eat.

V. Stark: …

Parker laughed nervously. “I do,” he said to Flash. “I eat.”

V. Stark: Nice try, kid. Time for your exit, I think.

Parker’s phone pinged. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the message. “Oh. That’s how they’re covering it.” He showed Flash the message:

**Clint Barton**  
Hey kid, got a minute since you’re here? There’s something up with these new arrows: need them right before we get a mission. 

Well, that was convincing after even what the class had learned today, let alone what Flash had discovered. Another message appeared:

Pepper’s going to clear it with your teacher.

“Guess I gotta go,” Parker said, resigned. “Flash, will you cover for me if anyone asks? Tell them you saw the message?”

“Sure. You go do cool stuff with arrows; leave us mere mortals here to crack nerve reattachment in the space of ninety minutes.”

Parker grinned at him. Actually grinned. “I believe in you.”

And he left. Flash knew he was joking, but it was nice to hear all the same. Parker hadn’t _needed_ to say that, he could have just gone.

Strangely, there were no miraculous medical breakthroughs during the lab time, but some of the interns did let them play with the neural interfaces so that they could control a robotic arm, and realise its limitations when picking something up. Flash knew the arm was holding the ball because he could see it, but he had no idea how tightly he was gripping it.

“Sensory feedback,” Kira Connelly said as she flexed the fingers against the ball. “I kind of know there’s some resistance because it’s not moving as much, but it’s not like it would be in my actual hand.”

“Exactly,” one of the interns said. “That’s the biggest problem. For the most part, just having a functional hand is a big help to amputees, but we know we can do better. We just need to figure out how.”

Flash secretly hoped that by the time they made that breakthrough, he would be interning in this lab.

Since they were all split into groups, they were escorted to the press hall where the Q&A would take place by an intern, who chatted to them about the application process and funding that she received, and the fact that she was allowed to use her internship research for course credits (although it did have to be accompanied by lots of documents from Legal about proprietary interests). She also warned them that sleep deprivation was a thing when interning, as was stress. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted, but she felt it was worth it for the sheer opportunity. Even if she didn’t get re-hired when she graduated, a Stark internship looked great on a resumé.

When they reached the hall, Pepper Stark was already there waiting for the class to trickle in. There was a bit of grey in her neat hair, and a few lines around her eyes, but Flash still thought she looked every bit as well put-together as she always did.

Jones raised her hand before she was even seated, which seemed to surprise Mrs Stark.

“Yes?”

“Mrs Stark, will you be staying for the Q&A? Because I have some things I’d like to ask you.”

She looked taken aback. “I hadn’t been planning on it, but I suppose. Or I could answer then now if you want?”

Jones glanced around: a good half of their class was still missing, and Flash could have a guess as to which particular members she was looking for. Flash might be a dick, but at least he wasn’t a misogynistic dick. He feared Jones far too much for that.

“I’d like to wait for the rest of the class, if it’s all the same to you?”

Mrs Stark nodded. “Of course. Maybe we can get your questions out of the way first, then your classmates can focus on the Avengers?”

"Sounds fair.”

They waited a couple of minutes until everyone but Peter had arrived, and Mrs Stark invited Jones to ask her questions.

“First of all, how do you find being the CEO of one of the biggest corporations in the world, from a female perspective?”

Mrs Stark gave a wry smile. “Well, just being female can have its issues occasionally as I’m sure you’re already finding. Some of our board members are old, white men, and this” (she gestured to herself) “isn’t ‘how things were done in their day’. But it’s been fourteen years now, and they’re slowly getting used to the idea that I’m not going to ruin the place overnight. Or they’re being replaced by younger board members who aren’t quite so set in their ways.”

That kind of attitude seemed ridiculous for a company that was always looking to the future, the next innovation. Flash would wonder how people like that could exist somewhere like Stark Industries, then he remembered: old white men.

“Okay. So, I noticed while we were touring that your lab leaders are a good mix of male and female, races, nationalities, and that you’ve got employees who are enby, or differently abled. Is that to fulfil quotas, or…?”

Mrs Stark looked offended at the very suggestion. “We hire the best person for the job. That person’s gender, orientation, physical ability, race, religion… none of that factors into the decision. In fact, initial resumés are all stripped of that kind of information and we just look at qualifications and references before interviewing.”

Jones looked pleased with that answer, and Mrs Stark gave a small smile as she realised that she had been played by a teenager.

“Thanks, Mrs Stark. I’m glad you’re giving everyone equal consideration.”

Mrs Stark glanced around the room. “Does anyone else have any questions for me before we get started?”

Two girls raised their hands: Shelley/whatever, and Betty Brant raised the hand that wasn’t holding her phone, recording everything.

Mrs Stark nodded to Stacey(?) first. “Yes?”

“Sydney Taylor. Mrs Stark, you’re a feminist icon, an inspiration for girls everywhere. I’m just curious about why you gave up your name when you got married.”

Mrs Stark paled slightly, and there was a sharp intake of breath from a lot of their classmates. Especially, Flash noticed, the ‘younger’ ones.

“You Blipped, didn’t you?” Mrs Stark asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs Stark nodded as if that explained everything. “If you hadn’t, you might have known that I didn’t ‘give up’ my name when I got married.” She didn’t sound pissed exactly, but it was obvious she wasn’t exactly happy about the question. “I took Tony’s name when he died. I did it as a mark of respect for my husband, who gave his life to save everyone else’s.”

Well fuck, that sure showed Sydney, who was looking at her knees, embarrassed. And Flash felt kind of bad for Brant, who Mrs Stark turned to next.

“Betty Brant, Mrs Stark; I report for the school news bulletin. This is kind of personal, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to answer. I’m from a single-parent home, and my dad works long hours at his job. How do you manage to balance your work here and raising your daughter?”

Mrs Stark took a moment. “It’s easier now that Morgan’s at school,” she began, her voice softer than it had been when discussing herself or the company, and a hell of a lot less so than when she was answering Sydney’s idiotic question. “I try to schedule my work day around her school hours so that I can be there for her as much as possible. But, as I’m sure you know, that’s not always possible and I’m fortunate enough to have a family willing to step in when I can’t be there myself.

“Tony and I spent so much of our time over the years with the Avengers that Morgan knows them as her family. And who wouldn’t want to be picked up from school by Captain America occasionally?”

Leeds snickered and elbowed Jones. Flash suddenly suspected that Parker might well have been threatened with such a thing before now, although he knew _that_ news would have spread quickly had it actually happened, and more people might have figured out his little secret.

“Does that answer your question?”

Brant nodded. “Yes, thank you. Now I’m jealous of a six-year-old.”

Mrs Stark gave her a bright smile, taking the comment the way it had been intended. “And now, I’m sure you would all like for me to introduce you to my family.”

She ran through the names of the attendees, with cheers and applause as each one made their way onto the stage: War Machine, Falcon, White Wolf, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Dr Hulk (who was alarmingly large in real life, although nowhere near the size he used to be).

“Steve Rogers.”

There were gasps as Captain America walked onto the stage. The elderly man was undoubtably Captain Rogers, but… what had happened to him? Why was he so _old_?

“And, since you guys are based in Queens, we’ve persuaded your very own, home-grown Avenger to come visit. Give a warm welcome to Spider-Man.”

Flash cheered along with everyone else as Spider-Man entered and waved at them. Flash thought he looked a bit nervous, although it was hard to tell since he was suited up, in the nanotech Iron Spider suit by the looks of things. Then Spidey did a back-flip and landed beside Captain America, pulling his chair out for him. Cap gave him a bit of a glare, and Spider-Man shrugged.

Once everyone was seated, Mrs Stark opened up the floor for questioning. Every hand went up immediately.

“How many of those questions aren’t about how old I am?” Captain Rogers asked, with a bit of a nervous laugh.

Most of the hands went down. A few brave souls remained.

“Told you,” Colonel Rhodes said from the other end of the table.

“All right then. What you don’t know about how we ended the Blip is that we had to use time travel to gather the Infinity Stones together from a point before they were destroyed. Yes, time travel exists, but it’s not particularly easy to do and, trust me, it’s not comfortable. It’s definitely not as easy as getting into a DeLorean, or a Police Box.”

The nerds among them laughed, Spider-Man included.

“Once we had used the Stones, we had to put them back, to avoid creating parallel timelines.”

A ripple of “Oh”s went through the room. Again, the geeks.

“That was my job. And once I was done I didn’t see the harm, instead of coming back here, in going to 1948 instead. You probably know that I had a lady friend, during the war – that’s on my Wikipedia page. Well, I went and married her. Tony always joked about my age: now I really am over a hundred years old.

“Now that’s done, who wants to ask the other guys anything?”

Hands went back up, and Flash relaxed as the Avengers fielded questions about their past missions, laughing as they talked about some if their escapades. It was nice to see them smiling as they talked about the three Avengers they had lost, and Scarlet Witch’s twin too. Some questions covered the fact that some of the Avengers had originally been HYDRA operatives, and that was a bit more awkward but both Sergeant Barnes and Miss Maximoff were open about their experiences and how their lives had changed for the better now they had a family around them.

One intrepid girl asked Spider-Man if he was single, which caused a flurry of giggling from her friends. Even hidden in his suit, Flash could see that Parker was embarrassed.

“Uh, no. I’ve, um, I’ve got a significant other and I’m a pretty monogamous kind of guy. Thanks, though.”

Which then led to him being soundly teased by the Avengers while Jones tried not to look pleased. So they were together then.

Leeds asked the next question, again to Spider-Man:

“You… uh… seem to stick around Queens a lot. Not that we mind or anything – I mean, it’s great that you do – but when did you become an Avenger, and why do you still stick with us?”

The eyes on Parker’s suit widened as he considered his options. Clearly, telling his very own classmates that the reason he stayed in Queens was because he was still in high school wasn’t the best move here.

“Well, you know, Queens is home. And all the saving the world stuff is great, but you can’t lose sight of your own neighbourhood, right? That’s important too.

“And Mr Stark made me an Avenger just…” He broke off and swallowed, his eyes on the table in front of him. “It was just before the Blip, when the ship first appeared.”

“Spider-Man was actually invited to join the Avengers about six months before that,” Mrs Stark broke in. “He turned them down.”

Those anime-large eyes went enormously wide. “Wait, that was _real_? Mr Stark said it was a test.”

Mrs Stark rolled her eyes. “Yeah, he told me he said that. That was him covering his ass because he’d screwed up the one job I gave him.”

There were varying reactions from the rest of the Avengers – some were laughing, some were pretending to look hurt. Captain Rogers patted Spider-Man’s gloved hand sympathetically.

“You turned us down?” Hawkeye asked, his hands clasped to his chest in some ridiculous pantomime of shock. “Why, Spidey, why? Don’t you love us?”

Parker started stammering like a fool, until Captain Rogers piped up: “I understand. You had a job, protecting your home and the people there. And we are… we’re a lot, and you’re still young. Three years ago it must have been a lot to ask.”

“Yeah,” Parker agreed, his voice soft but at least he didn’t sound like he was flailing any more. “It was.”

“But you stepped up when the world needed you to help,” Falcon added. “You didn’t do so bad when the time came.”

Flash put his hand up. “Captain Rogers, you just said ‘three years ago’, but you survived the Blip?”

He got a smile for that. “The younger version of me did, but I Blipped, along with Spidey, Bucky, Sam, Wanda and probably half of you guys.”

Whoa, weird.

“Was it weird, knowing the Blip was coming and not being able to do anything about it? Not being able to tell anyone?”

Captain Rogers nodded. “It was very difficult. My wife, Peggy, knew some things about the future because I knew she wouldn’t live long enough to see them come to pass but, when she died, I couldn’t talk to anyone. I had to let everything play out otherwise I risked changing the whole outcome.

“I’ve got to admit, though, I was glad I didn’t have to live through those five years again – that sucked enough the first time around.”

“You’re not wrong,” Colonel Rhodes grumbled.

“And you know I would never have forgiven you if I’d missed your eleventy-first birthday,” Parker added.

There were gasps from the nerds in the audience as they did the math.

“Oh. Yes. You do know I get fireworks on my birthday every year, right?”

“Challenge accepted.”

Why did Flash get the feeling that whatever Parker concocted for this year’s Fourth of July celebrations was going to be pretty spectacular?

.oOo.

Parker met them as they were being escorted back to the bus.

“Aw, did I miss the whole Q&A? Darn it.” He actually looked disappointed.

“I’ve got a recording,” Brant said helpfully. “It was awesome.”

“Oh, thanks Betty. It’d be great to take a look at it. At least those new arrows are okay now.”

“You were working on Hawkeye’s arrows?” someone asked. “Is that why you weren’t there?”

Parker nodded, and for the whole of the journey back to school the whole class was crowded as close together as possible so they could pepper Parker with questions about what he really got up to at Stark Industries. Flash stayed back: he would need to keep a low profile for the next couple of weeks, until people forgot about the fact he had been 100% wrong about Parker’s internship. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.


End file.
